The Power Of Self Love

The amount of love you show your neighbor reflects how much you love yourself.-Tessy Igbinoghene

The second(great commandment) is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. St Mark 12:30

I recall a story two decades ago by a well known Christian author Josh McDowell, who was also considered an expert in speaking on relationships and Christian Apologetics.

His brief story of a brief encounter not only profoundly impacted and changed him, but influenced and changed me forever.

Josh had been traveling around the country on his speaking engagements when he got on a plane this particular day and was seated next to a certain woman. He noticed the woman had a dozen lavishly arranged roses and struck up a conversation with her. While verbally admiring her roses,  Josh made reference to her husband buying her the flowers.

Well, to his astonishment the woman stated to him that she had bought them for herself as a gift. After a pause, he asked her why did she buy flowers for herself. The woman stated, “because I like myself.”

She explained to Josh that when you like and admire someone, you tend to buy them flowers. Josh said that as soon as he got off the plane, he immediately bought himself two dozen roses!

His messages of love, intimacy and relationships had significantly been impacted from that moment on.

The art of loving has perplexed the world over as the difficulty in expressing love, maintaining love, enduring love, and most of all, receiving the love that we desire has gripped us.

This woman tapped into outwardly expressing the greatest love of all, as the songwriter puts it, loving herself. Dr. Margaret Paul of Inner Bonding says, “we cannot give to another what we do not have within.”

What I have found over the years is that actively expressing love to myself not only enhances inner security and self-worth but has also enhanced my ability to express love to others in a myriad of ways and expressions. Love pours out so much easier, comfortably, and most importantly, securely. Many cannot express love securely, because of hurts, disappointments, etc.

It would be a good idea for those individuals to start first with self-love.
How does one obtain self-love?  How can you begin to actively express love to yourself if you simply don’t have it?

While psychologists, therapists, and other experts may have a host of therapeutic suggestions that may be worthy of exploring, I will simplify things by cutting to the chase, and go to the source of all love…God himself.  The Bible teaches us that God is love. Wow! You mean the creator of us all is love incarnate? Yep! He sure is.

To achieve this love, we must spend time receiving it from the source of all love, the creator of life itself, God.

Have any of you ever went into prayer to God, and come out feeling unloved?  Of course not. There is no way that anyone can leave from communication with the creator of human life without experiencing some level of love touch.

Many of us know that the more we spend time with a person, communicating with them, discussing issues with each other, we produce familiarity and intimacy. The time spent in their presence either causes you to feel worthy and loved by them, or the opposite. Please understand that we experience the same with God. The more time we spend in God’s presence, we experience so much love, and self-worth, that we cannot help but to come out feeling loved and worthy. The problem with most is that we don’t act on it in our everyday lives.

We must see and treat ourselves the way God has shown us that he sees us as. It is the same way as actively treating ourselves the way a loved one treats us.

Being in God’s  presence and feeling and seeing his love is one thing.  However, when we actively carry out the love for ourselves as God loves us when we emerge from his presence is another thing.

After all, we are commanded by God to love people the same way we love our self.  He apparently is expecting us to love ourselves.

Why is it that we want everyone else to say continually, “I love you,” but we won’t tell it to ourselves? We want our loved ones to praise and shower us with words and acts of appreciation but won’t do it to ourselves. I imagine that anyone that spends time in prayer any length of time will eventually hear and feel God’s love and appreciation despite our many faults and failings. Why not give yourself the same love and appreciation that you hear and feel from your creator, despite your many shortcomings? God is trying to tell us that we’re worthy of loving ourselves and actively expressing it, if he can love us and knows everything about us.

Of course, it is very healthy and appropriate to receive love and praise from those around us, but this is far from being enough of the love that we need.

I’m not talking about the canned religious love where you have to hug everyone in your house of worship and say encouraging words to them throughout the service. That is done to loosen everyone up and to speak faith into the atmosphere to jumpstart our mental processes to be able to leave with some level of edification.

We need active self-love.

Tapping into God's love fuels our ability to love ourselves. Without knowing and experiencing his love, simply praising oneself becomes pride and bigotry because it's a false self-love and requires you to put others down to experience it.

When you see a person that truly loves himself, you'll see them loving others very easily, and serving others with ease and passion. Conversely, when you see a person putting down others and lifting themselves up, these have self-hatred and insecurity as they hide it by putting down others. Tapping into God's love is what will nourish our need to be loved. Love is a basic human need. The problem is finding it because humans search for it everywhere else but where the source is. That source is God because he is love incarnate.

I challenge you to express self-love actively, by verbally affirming and appreciating yourself, thanking yourself and physically nurturing your self-appreciation as you would someone else.

I challenge you to reminisce mentally over the positive things you have done, achieved, and tell yourself how great of a job you have done. Then, continuously thank God for allowing you and helping you to achieve those things. Go deep and think of all of the good things about you. Write them down. Then, continuously thank God for his love and mercy that allows you to be those things.

You may ask, “what does mercy have to do with all of this?”

Good question. By always earnestly acknowledging and giving respect to God for his mercies in your life, you disallow your failures and shortcomings from handicapping your self-worth. You cannot walk in condemnation or low self-esteem, after spending so much time in God’s presence basking in his forgiveness, and feeling his love.

It is the same thing as if you had made a grave error at work, that, by most accounts, is worthy of firing. You go to your boss for forgiveness. Your boss happily forgives you, encourages and praises you, tells you that you’re awesome, and how much he/she supports you. Well, when you leave out of your boss’ office, you are beaming with both confidence and humility, along with a new vigor for conquering your tasks with a vengeance.  

If any of the other fellow employees try to condemn you for your error, it will be utterly useless. It will have no effect on you at all. It is because you had a personal encounter with the boss, who forgave you, and you personally know that your boss fully backs you.It might have been different if someone else told you your boss forgave you. Your confidence wouldn’t be that strong. You would have lingering doubts. However, because you spoke to the boss yourself, no one can challenge your personal experience and dialogue with the boss.

It is the same way with God. It is not enough for a Pastor, Priest, Rabbi, or Imam to tell you these things from a pulpit. Your personal encounter with the boss is priceless in these situations.

Go for yourself. Do it often.

In doing these things periodically, you will wrap yourself in a blanket of love, worth, and humility that will help fuel your contributions to yourself and mankind.

Personally, I have found over the years that even through the many hurts and disappointments, love losses, I am still flowing very freely with love.

It is because of the high level of self-love fueled by the love that I know God has for me, that has filled me with an endless source of love that flows like a river outward.

I believe that this is available to every human being as we actively love ourselves.

Whoever does not love, does not know God, because  God is love.-I John 4:8(NIV)

The Fate Of Hate

I was living in the heat of my own lands,

Harvesting provisions with my own hands.

You came upon us with trickery, and swarmed us with bands.

You took us to a land that wasn’t flowing with milk and honey,

But yet with our skill and hard work,

With it we made you money,

We made this land flow with the honey.

Because of your hate, you will need to be replaced.

Power must be had, by no one that is mad.

We don’t hate you, but we will replace you.

Read my prophecy, with the eyes of your spirit.

You will behold a better democracy, with less hypocrisy.

Because the prayers of the righteous, and the blood of the martyrs,

Along with the work of the gardener, in God’s eyes have been precious.

As God’s eyes stay steadily on the sparrow, we know he has been watching over us.

What you presently see, is not what we will be.

You have seen what we can build, and are afraid of what we can do.

We will build this thing better, a democracy that is true.

As we made it flow with honey, and burst forth with money,

We will make this place brighter, and much more sunny.

Do not fear, we won’t  bring you to tear. We will handle with care, and share, and relieve the bare.

How Intelligent Are You?

Are we as intelligent as we think we are? Okay, I know you’re pretty smart. After all, you are reading this post, and smart people like to read and learn or explore various other vehicles of learning. So, I know that you are among the learned. Let me just say that first of all, this is not an IQ test of some sort. This post is not a tool to test your skill sets, or to measure your general knowledge of things like some game show or aptitude test. This article is about principles that, if you open your mind to them, will put you on the path to obtaining wisdom. The moment you embrace these principles, you begin to gauge  your intelligence. I know, I know. That sounds like an aptitude test. And yes, I know those tests are fun, I enjoy them myself. However, I assure you that this is not the journey I am taking you on. What I will speak to you are simple, but unconventional words of wisdom through four principles to promote thought and put you on a path towards universal intelligence. Okay, now with that out of the way, let me get to the part of gauging your intelligence.

Principle #1. I Am Not Intelligent

The first principle is foundational. We must, first of all, agree with Socrates, who once said, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” We would do well, therefore, to acknowledge:

The more intelligent I think am, the dumber I become. The more I conclude my smartness, the more I decline to idiocy. Uh-oh, those are some strong words. Hang in there. This path we're on is going to be good.

I say that I am an intellectual because I am an intellectual; however, declaring this is a dangerous thing. It is because the moment I do, and the more that I do; I subconsciously begin closing myself off to the infinite wisdom available. The well of infinite wisdom remains wide open to those vessels that are empty enough and thirsty enough to drink it.

When I say, I am smart, I subconsciously say that I have arrived at superior levels of knowledge, which fosters a level of (false) security that I have obtained enough knowledge to ward off certain amounts of challenging wisdom and perceptions. This claimed state of intelligence may very well be true, but it is yet a dangerous and ignorant state to be in. This statement may also sound like a paradox.

When I say that I am intelligent, I send a subliminal message to myself that I have reached an above average level of intelligence sufficient enough to be above those perceived to be of limited intelligence. I then, therefore, limit myself to wisdom and perspectives coming from those vessels of perceived lower intelligence than mine, which are often too valuable to miss.

Therefore, the moment I say that I am smart, and then that perception makes me dumber, it also decreases my ability to become more intelligent, or more knowledgeable than I was previously.

Therefore, I will not acknowledge, or say that I am smart.

Principle #2. I Am A Learner

I will say rather, that I am more learned than I was previously. I will say that I am a learner, which means that I am always searching and learning, and open to further depths of knowledge and perceptions, to be able to understand more.

I will say that I am in the learning lane, which means that I stay on the road that leads to learning more, that I may keep learning and understanding more views, perceptions and knowledge.

Principle #3. Knowledge Of Any One Subject Or Item Can Never Be Complete

No knowledge of any one thing is infinite.

If God is infinite, if the universe is infinite, then the knowledge of the two can only be finite.

How can you ever say that your knowledge of anything is infinite, or complete? You contradict yourself!

To say that my knowledge of the infinite, that I have thorough or complete knowledge of that which is infinite is to say that I am infinite.

Doesn’t life teach us the allegory of completion? Once any living thing reaches maturity, at that moment, it begins to die or degenerate. Science has noted that the human body starts to decrease at stages of maturity. The Brain and lungs start declining at age 20 while the heart begins its decline by the age of 40.

This observation brings us to the fourth principle.

Principle #4. A Balanced Life Is The Embrace Of Incompletion And Deficits

The human quest for completion is an endless road of vanity. The human obsession with the ultimate achievement is an endless scramble akin to filling a lightweight bag of holes with water. Can it ever be filled? For every hole that has been plugged, another will appear. The quest for solutions is perpetual; the universal attainment is forever elusive. Life is only balanced when there are deficits. Deficits bring equilibrium. Doesn’t the wisdom of the scale teach us?

The two, three, or four sides of the scale(whichever is the case) is the only whole. There can be no balance unless each side has a deficit. Neither side can have the whole, or else the scale is severely imbalanced and causes discomfort for both sides and the universe of the scale. The further away from the balancing, the more discomfort to each and the scales universe. The closer to the balancing, the less discomfort for the common purpose of the scale. In the universe, a scale is only just when it is balanced. An unjust scale is an abomination to the master of the scale, who always seeks its balance.

This is why we see that when we raze through forests, pollute waters and our atmosphere, we see a perversion of ecosystems. It is because each living thing directly, or indirectly, supports the existence of another living thing. No living thing, including mankind, can live equitably without the life, functions, and wisdom of another living thing or force of nature. It would cause substantial and sometimes severe imbalances to the scale of existence that God has put in place. The scale always seeks balance which is all about harmonious existence within ourselves first, to be able to achieve harmony with outside beings and forces.    

Another example is the pie. Grab a pizza and have four devourers cut their own size piece to satisfy their varying degrees of hunger. Each devourer has an incomplete piece of the pie, because the pie itself is the only whole, and the whole is divided.

Wisdom also has made herself accessible to all beings in the universe. This accessibility doesn’t mean that all beings access wisdom simultaneously, or in the same manner as their other counterparts, or at the same speed or intervals, or have the same amounts. It only means that all beings have access, yet no being has complete control, nor monopoly capabilities. Besides, it would only piss off the master of the scales to see attempted violation of equilibrium. Therefore, no one being or compilation of beings is capable of having completion of wisdom. Every intelligent person will still need the assistance of others of diverse bits of intelligence in order to succeed in any one project. So, why be boastful of having more than another in an area or two? You can never reach completion anyway.

The moment you reach a supposed completion, you start to decrease. (to make an end of anything, you must decrease somewhere else.)

The more you decrease, the more you increase; the more you increase, the more you decrease.

Does this sound strange? Yes, I know it does. Let me explain.

The more I increase in knowledge in any one thing, the more I decrease in ignorance of it. The more I decrease the perception of how much knowledge I have, the more I increase my capacity to obtain more knowledge. The more I increase my perception of how much knowledge I have, the more I decrease my capacity to learn more. There must be a deficit somewhere, to produce increase somewhere else.

The universal law of sacrifice is that nothing is obtained without a sacrifice. To achieve an increase in one area, one must experience a decrease somewhere, in some field. There must be an offering somewhere.

Whoever will increase, must yield to a deficit on behalf of the other side(s) of the scale. It is the circle of life. Monopolies in any area and severely unbalanced scales are a violation of the universe and are a freak of the natural order. It is a representation of disorder in the universe.

We will never reach completion of wisdom in any area under this limitless universe. To be wise, we must embrace our insignificance in the vast ocean of boundless universe to walk in the balance of our purpose. If there was completion in the universe, then knowledge of the universe can be finite, and knowledge of any one thing in the universe can be finite, and be completed. However, once again, we know this is not the case. We can realize that we can only know partial and can only see partial.

I conclude by stating that to be wise, we must embrace our ignorance and become a perpetual learning machine, to passionately achieve balance on behalf of the universe. I encourage you to join this journey, as I advise you that your path to wisdom is paved by your continual acknowledgment of your ignorance, your passion for learning, and the realization of your perpetual inability to fulfill your quest for completion.

Once again, I ask you, How intelligent are you?